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GPWEEK.com //
PARTNERS:
And so Fernando has won another.
Those of us who predicted he
would win the 2012 World Drivers’
Championship, even as the F2012
was furrowing brows and giving
early-season pace away to the
McLarens, Red Bulls, Lotus-Renaults
and Mercedes, are in no way
surprised. Ferrari were always going
to regroup; and there’s no-one better
than Fernando when it comes to
maximizing the good qualities of a car,
minimizing its bad ones and stringing
together a race weekend. Spin on
Fridays, win on Sundays. The wonder,
looking back, is that anyone didn’t
think that a tight year like this would
go Fernando’s way.
Hockenheim was standard Fernando
fare: changeable conditions and rain
(defying the highly-rated weather
forecasters) on Friday and Saturday
afternoon. No problem. Push the car hard
on both inters and wets, find the grip
wide of the conventional racing line, stay
quiet, smile the smile, wear the shades
and take the pole – take two poles, as
it happened, because his last two laps
were good enough for P1.
Said timing was perfect, too: quickest
of all before the rain fell on Saturday
morning, Fernando in the afternoon took
advantage of the tracks left by other cars,
the more so as time wore on. He was
out there, hunting for a lap, even as the
chequered flag was unfurling.
The blue skies of a sparkling Sunday
brought new tests. Remember the
dry-weather pace of Saturday morning.
Win the start. Pull out a DRS-free
lead. Manage the tyres. Manage the
back-markers!
He did all of that. In perhaps the truest
test we’ve had yet of the F2012’s current
status, he was able to handle all aspects
of Seb Vettel’s Red Bull (with margin to
spare). He could even enjoy a nice little
cameo, courtesy of his old mate, Lewis
Hamilton.
Delayed by an early-lap puncture,
Lewis rejoined just behind Fernando and
Seb on the road (but a lap down in reality)
before proceeding to show his pace,
using DRS to pass Seb without issue into
the hairpin. Incensed, Seb half-heartedly
fought back, confused, I think, about
whether he was ‘racing’ Lewis or letting
him go; that is what his waved arms
seemed to suggest, at any rate.
Fernando, in front, could only smile
inwardly as his gap to Seb began to
grow. (It was difficult to see what Seb’s
problem was: if a guy like Lewis Hamilton
isn’t allowed to unlap himself and race to
the flag, then what was the 1967 Italian
GP all about?*)
It was when Jenson Button jumped
Vettel in the second pit stop (in part
thanks to the time Seb had spent faffing
around with Lewis, in part to McLaren’s
amazing 2.3sec pit stop) that Fernando’s
job description changed. Suddenly he
had a silver car in his mirrors, all over him,
potentially intruding into his DRS zone.
Suddenly Fernando, the great
Manager of Races, had to become
a Racing Driver, pure and simple. Pit
stop strategies had been played. Radio
messages from the pit wall about KERS
or diff settings became superfluous,
mere smokescreens. Somewhere,
somehow, he needed to dig deep, to find
an advantage.
It came on the only sections of
Hockenheim worthy of the description
‘decent corners’: the last two right-
handers and then Turn 1 – the quick right-
hander followed by a shortish straight.
If Fernando could be perfect here for
lap after closing lap then maybe he
could generate enough space to protect
himself from DRS detection out of the
hairpin. The McLaren would be better in
and out of the slow stuff on the other
parts of the lap; no question about that.
The Ferrari is still no MP4-27 or RB7 –
not when it comes to grip vs balance vs
traction. On the quicker corners,
F1 >>> HOCKENHEIM